text: In 2010, provincial government funding was cut for resource management. Preceding the dam breach, Mount Polley was inspected 2013, but not 2011 or 2012. Bill Bennett, Minister of Energy and Mines, said "there is no evidence that the government's missed inspections were related to the failure of the dam [in 2014]".
  According to an Imperial Metals summary filed with Environment Canada in 2013, "there was 326 tonnes of nickel, over 400 tonnes of arsenic, 177 tonnes of lead and 18,400 tonnes of copper and its compounds placed in the tailings pond [last year]". At a community meeting on 5 August 2014, the president of Imperial Metals stated "we regularly perform toxicity tests and we know this water is not toxic to rainbow trout."
  Water, sediment, and fish in Polley and Quesnel Lake are monitored by British Columbia government staff at the Ministry of Environment. Fish sampling in the months immediately proceeding the tailing spill revealed elevated levels of selenium that exceed guidelines for human consumption, though elevated levels of arsenic and copper were not considered a threat to human health. These levels were similar to levels found in 2013 before the tailings breach and considered likely due to local geology. Sediment testing near the tailings spill revealed elevated concentrations of copper, iron, manganese, arsenic, silver, selenium and vanadium. Yet, the government said tests in May 2014, prior to the tailings release, had shown elevated levels of the same elements. By 2016, Ministry of Environment testing determined zero exceedances of its guideline levels for contaminants for both aquatic life and drinking water in Quesnel Lake.
  In the years after the tailing spill, the extent of the impact of the event has been largely determined. The British Columbia Ministry of Environment provides ongoing water monitoring of pH, conductivity, turbidity, total suspended solids, total dissolved solids, total organic carbon, hardness, alkalinity, nutrients, general ions, total and dissolved metals at the site.